We sometimes comment that if babies don’t see you, don’t smell you, don’t hear you, and don’t feel you, they don’t know you exist. They need to receive inputs continuously to feel safe with our presence and, at the level of touch and contact, they also need to seek the bodily limits to feel like in the womb .
I’m talking about those babies that when they sleep they move, they are restless and it seems as if they were climbing on the crib or the bed until they managed to touch the edge of the crib or our arm with their head. I’m talking about those babies that if you leave them lying down they start to open their arms as if to say “I’m falling!” I am talking and we are going to talk about those babies who, when sleeping, need to feel like in a womb .
That I fall, do not let me go!
Sure you know what I’m talking about. I’m referring to Moro’s reflex, the one that when they feel that they fall makes them stretch their arms and hold their hands steady as if trying to grab onto something imaginary.
For many babies you have to provoke the reflection to see that they do it, but many others do not need as much, and leaving them lying on a flat surface is enough so that, with any movement of their own, they begin to stretch their arms, hold their breath and cry because they really feel like they are falling . These babies, more than the others, need those body limits we talked about.
Looking for the stop in the head
There are also those who, it is not clear how, move at night, up in the crib or in the bed, in search of a stop that gives them security. The end of the crib, our arm if we sleep together, a cushion or whatever, since they don’t really know what they will find.
In the end they find that something they are looking for that touches their head and then they finally feel that they are in a situation similar to the one they have lived in for a few months inside the belly, when the head continually touched one of Mom’s structures. Obviously, this makes them feel better and gives them peace of mind .
Snuggle better
So when a baby is sleeping, putting something on them that touches their heads can be a good idea. That is why many parents touch their heads in those moments, even the belly, so that they feel a certain pressure on the head and abdomen that serves as a body limit and that gives them a little heat.
It is not that it is the hand of a saint, but many times it helps them sleep peacefully for a little longer. To bad, you know, a little restraint, having them snuggled to our chest or simulating a uterus with a blanket (keeping them in a wrapped fetal position) can work wonders to make the first weeks and months a little more bearable for the baby , and also for us parents, of course.
Photo | Марина Вельможко from Pixabay
In Babies and more | Swaddling the baby for security, Why children calm down when you hold them, High demand babies: napping in arms
